Winsted Watershed Association
A clearer and cleaner Winsted Lake has been the benefit of the hardworking Winsted Lake Watershed Association (WLWA).
The association, formed in 1979, has relatively new officers for the organization and appointed a new board of directors which is striving to continue the lake associations’ efforts started almost 30 years ago.
Within just a year’s time, the watershed association updated its bylaws, the mission statement, formed a finance oversight committee, and restenciled curbs with a warning that tells residents this “drains to the lake.”
In addition, it created a water testing results database. Data which has been collected through water testing since 1987, has been entered into the database.
Marv Ebensperger, a math and science teacher at Holy Trinity High School, has had his students test the lake water monthly, under his supervision, since 2001.
Ebensperger and WLWA Vice President Dale Maus created the data base to be able to compare testing results from previous years.
Another ongoing project is rain gardens. Some association members have been doing research on native plants for the lake and natural vegetation that can grow along the lake to be used as a buffer, grabbing nutrients that would otherwise flow into the lake with runoff water.
In preparation for the grass strips’ project planned for 2008-09, WLWA secretary Gary Daigle has volunteered to head a committee to work with the soil and conservation department of McLeod County to get grass strips placed along watershed ditches.
A list of all landowners who make up the watershed has been compiled. The WLWA plans to bring all of them together to talk about how to get the grass strips in place. A meeting in the fall of 2008 is being considered.
It is the WLWA’s wish to offer incentives to the landowners for planting the grass strips, but still needs to work that out with the DNR.
The WLWA would like to see the landowners sign up by the fall of 2008, and the grass strips planted in the spring of 2009.
The lake association will get a helping hand on this project from a team which is part of the Blandin Foundation. The team’s goal is to work on improving Winsted Lake water quality by limiting nutrient invasion via watershed.
The grass strips’ project as well as the curly leaf pondweed will be issues the team will be working to solve.
Although funding to treat the curly leaf pondweed is now in place, the WLWA is waiting for the DNR to get back to the association with permission to chemically treat the curly leaf and to find out how much of the weed it will be allowed to treat.
Permission will not come until the spring of the year after the DNR comes out to see the weed in the lake and signs off on the permit.
Last year, the association requested the same permission and it was denied by the DNR.
“The DNR feels that any weed in the lake is a good weed. They think it is beneficial to the fish. But this is the wrong kind of weed for us. Especially with our lake being so shallow,” President of the WLWA Bev Schmitz said.
A group called Lake Restoration was hired by the WLWA to do a global positioning system (GPS) mapping of the lake to discover where the weed was located in the lake. From the mapping, the weed was discovered around the entire lake perimeter.
The lake association is hoping to reverse the results of the DNR’s previous decision which has let the weed infect a total of 32.6 acres of offshore area, and 67 acres of onshore area. Winsted Lake is 376 acres in total size.
If the WLWA does get permission to treat the curly leaf pondweeed, it will be done in the spring with a chemical that has no known side effects and is environmentally safe. The city will be helping to fund the chemical treatment of Winsted Lake to reduce the invasive weed.
Another major project the city will be responsible for is to improve the west side of the lakeshore with the addition of the lakefront promenade rescheduled to begin in the early part of 2008.
“We have a really good relationship with the city and they are our best resource. They are always willing to help us and we think that is fantastic,” Schmitz said.
Current watershed association officers are: President Bev Schmitz, Vice President Dale Maus, Secretary Gary Daigle, Treasurer Sue Thurk.
Current Board of Directors are: Francis Condon (board secretary), Mike Nathe (board chairman), Jim Neff, Petie Littfin (past president), and Bev Schmitz (current president), Gene Hausladen serves as honorary ex-officio.
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